Respectme

Staff should be made aware of the policy, through part of the induction. Encourage individuals to speak in their own departments to discuss how this will effect them and their role. Keep it on the agenda for team meetings and perhaps have an on-going working group to discuss how successful the policy is in reality. This is to allow ownership to be taken of the policy.   

Parents and carers should also be made aware of their responsibilities and of the expectations of the organisation. They should be fully aware what will happen if a bullying incident occurs involving their child and their responsibilities in relation to this. It should also be made clear what the organisational procedures will be. This can be done through parents meetings and conferences or by asking the children and people to develop information leaflets that will be sent home to parents and carers. 

The organisational stance should also be communicated to children and young people.  This can be done through conference days or assemblies where bullying can be discussed and the ethos that bullying is never acceptable reinforced.

For further information, visit implementing policy into practice

Training and Support
Training and support should be provided to ensure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in relation to the anti-bullying policy and procedures. This guidance is essential so that everyone is aware of how a policy will be implemented into practice and what they are expected to do to achieve this.

Questionnaires
Questionnaires can be used to discover the true nature and extent of the problem. This will allow you to adapt your practices to ensure that you are addressing these problem areas.

Environmental factors
If you discover that certain areas such as changing rooms, corridors or certain routes are common ‘hot-spots' for bullying, increasing supervision in these areas may deter bullying from taking place.  The results obtained from the questionnaire should be shared and discussed to ensure that everyone engages with the practices being put in place through understanding the realities of what must be addressed.

Ground rules or a pledge
Can be devised by children and young people focussing on how they should interact with each other and what they will do if they experience bullying. These will differ depending on the ages of the children involved but may include statements such as:

"We will respect each other and our differences"
"When we see someone being bullied we will try to help"

These should be prominently displayed for all to see and if bullying behaviour occurs or relationships are being negative the behaviour can be checked by reminding children and young people of the statements.

Activities
Activities such as role-play, art work, drama and literature can provide further reinforcement that bullying is wrong and provide an empathetic approach to those who have been bullied or when bullying has been witnessed. Visual reminders around the organisation such as posters and badges also provide reinforcement.

Discussion
Talking about topics such as what is bullying, who would you tell and the impacts of bullying can explore current thoughts. Delving deeper can help to develop attitudes and create an environment where bullying is never acceptable.  Examples can be taken from the media or put forward by the children and young people themselves.

Peer Mediation
This approach involves Children and Young People in solving the problems of bullying. Pupils are trained to provide guidance and mediation to other children and young people when bullying occurs.  This can provide a helpful environment where there is no imbalance of power.   For further information, visit our section on peer mediation.

Bullying Boxes
Children and Young People can put any worries, issues or suggestions they have about bullying into the bullying box. This will then be reviewed by an adult who can take action. This allows anonymity and if bystanders are worried about a pupil they can use this approach without ‘telling'.  One of the drawbacks of this method can be deciding if the message is genuine or not.

Natural Consequences 
All behaviour communicates feelings and all behaviour has consequences. We can only begin to understand how to change unacceptable behaviour if the consequences are as logical and understandable to children and young people as the consequences of positive behaviour.

This should be dictated by your organisations behaviour policy and supported by your anti-bullying policy. Examples of consequences may include:

• Withdrawal of privileges e.g. football team, computer access, art club
• Internal exclusion, not allowed to play in the playground at break times or removal from a group
• Not allowed to attend trips and events
• Staged/Fixed term exclusion